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One of the recurring complaints I've noticed about Girls (and, boy, are there many) is that nobody knows a Jessa. Even more, nobody who watches the show really likes Jessa.
Funnily enough, I actually have someone in my life who reminds me of Jessa (she has a unique outlook on the world, enjoys the truly bizarre, and whenever we hang out, I always find myself in the most unexpected places with the most unexpected people) but that's not why I bring this up. It's that, unlike Marnie and Hannah, whom we've learned plenty about from their background and back stories, There's still missing pieces of Jessa's puzzling life. (Of course, Jessa would prefer to keep it that way).
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Sunday night's episode of Girls, titled "Video Games", finally allowed us to put some of that together. In an episode reminiscent of "The Return" and to some degree, "One Man's Trash", Jessa and Hannah were taken out of their natural habitat and put into a rural landscape. After receiving a nondescript text from her father, which Jessa interpreted as a secret message and Hannah rightly pointed out was probably nothing more than a butt text, the two ventured to upstate New York to see him. Within five minutes we learned more about Jessa than we did an entire season-and-a-half. For one, she may have been molested as a child and uses defense mechanisms to cope with it, or at least has it somewhere in the depths of her mind to just say something like that for the hell of it. That, and her father is not only someone who is perpetually late, but is an slovenly eccentric (he has a car full of old typewriters and a theory that all Camry drivers "are c**ts") who could take off, leaving anyone behind.
Jessa's father seemed happy to see her and the two quickly fell into their own secret language that only family members could share. Hannah, already sticking out like a neurotic thumb (she worried about crossing a "third rail" on a country train track to go pee outside), was put in an even more uncomfortable situation when Jessa's fathers equally eccentric hippie girlfriend Petula (Rosanna Arquette), whom Jessa, hates tells her she's there as "cushion" for the group dynamic. She had some interesting theories of her own, like that life is like a video game (it isn't) and that it's completely normal to eat your pet bunnies for dinner every night (it isn't).
But it wasn't that it was just a strange, dirty house (literally, with dirt and old issues of Penthouse) that was the real problem, it was that it was filled with so much emotional clutter. The topic of Jessa's divorce was broached with the same amount of concern as him showing up late to pick them up and her father didn't spend more than three hours with her before taking off to go to a lecture. Jessa was abandoned again, but took off with Hannah, Petula's very bizarre son Frank, and Frank's cute, possibly gay friend/Frank's possibly gay crush Tyler for the night instead. An already disastrous trip, even more so when Frank, Tyler, and Jessa did whippets while speeding down a dark country road and Hannah, thinking she was some part of a sexcapade with Jessa, had sex with Frank in a graveyard the woods. (I image Hannah's cry of "I feel like I'm in Hocus Pocus!" delighted a lot of her younger fans to no end).
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Later, in the room Hannah and Jessa shared, Jessa confessed that she didn't feel good and that she didn't feel "in the right frame of mind" to see her father, Hannah tried to assure her that no one is ever in the right state of mind for that. Whether the words were meant to comfort Jessa or Hannah can't help but bring everything back to herself (more than likely the latter), Jessa made it clear that she did not have parents like everyone else and her upbringing couldn't be compared to everyone else. (As her father would later put it, "We're not like other people").
The next morning Jessa, looking sad, swung on a swing set. She is, and has been, a lost little kid. In one heartbreaking heart-to-heart Jessa called her father on his bulls**t for abandoning her and everyone else in his life. For not being a better parent to her, for not standing up for her, for not checking in on her, for not being able to have a conversation with her, and most of all, for not letting her be the child in their father-daughter dynamic. Instead of truly apologizing or trying to make things right, he invites her to stay for one more family meal, promising to make her favorite dinner and Jessa obliged.
Jessa and Hannah (who had just had an awkward confrontation with Frank) get dropped off at the general store to pick up items for the dinner. As they sat outside with their groceries, Jessa matter-of-factly said that her father wouldn't be coming back to pick them up, that this is what he does: he disappears. The friends take the long walk back to the house and when Hannah comes back from the bathroom she finds a note from Jessa that read matter-of-factly: "See you around my love." Because that's what Jessa does, she disappears.
Jessa makes promises to visit, never does, and then shows up unannounced. She leaves you alone the in country, making you find your own way home, alone. It's not her fault, really. It's all she knows and it's the only way she's learned to survive. That despite our best intentions, we make the same mistakes as our parents. You don't have to like Jessa, but you have to at least identify with that. (I don't think is the end of Jessa though, just a covenant, but not out-of-character way to put Jemima Kirke's character on hold as she left the series temporarily for her pregnancy. I sure hope Kirke returns, because between the scene with her father and her post-split breakdown in the bathtub, she continues to amaze on Girls).
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Even Hannah realized how difficult and delicate our relationships with our parents are, as she called her parents to tell her she loved them in a sincere, and surprisingly sweet Hannah moment, only to be met with a combination of brash (her mother) and a total softie (her father). Like I said, despite our best intentions, all of us, even Hannah who feels like she's floating out in space, have traces of our parents and whether we like it or not, will always need them.
While "Video Games" wasn't as effective as "The Return" often feeling like an easy comedy trope, despite Lena Dunham's pitch-perfect delivery (the city girl doesn't know how to handle the weird country life! she has a UTI! she had sex with yet another weirdo!). I appreciated yet another fascinating character study on Girls and how they masterfully handled a topic that everyone, not just twenty-something Brooklynites, can relate to in one way or another.
[Photo credit: HBO]
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Last year the Oscars was, well, it was something. Coming off the Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosting debacle, we had undead marionette Billy Crystal emceeing the ceremony, doing his signature medley of all the Best Picture nominees as soon as the red carpet pre-show wrapped. That was about it for musical performances, other than the "In Memoriam" reel and some other crazy A. R. Rahman thing that no one really wanted.
That's because there were almost no Best Original Song nominees last year, and neither one was performed. Well, the category is back in full swing, and host Seth McFarlane — who has more jazz hands than a dance school in West Topeka — is sure to do some sort of bombastic production number. Oh, and there's going to be an ode to movie musicals too, featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Hudson, Anne Hathaway, and the rest of the We Won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress by Singing in a Musical Club.
Musicals numbers are back, so let's take this time to look at the best and worst (and a couple of so-good-they're-bad and so-bad-they're-good) from awards shows past.
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Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: AP Photo]
BEST
Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, and Anika Noni Rose sing "Love You I Do," "Listen," and "Patience" from Dreamgirls
It's not often that you get this many vocal powerhouses on stage at one time, so when you do, it's best to make the most of it. This 2008 clip (sorry the quality is so crappy, but someone is trying to keep this off YouTube) will go down in Oscar History, even if J Hud was the only one to walk away with the trophy.
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WORST
Snow White and Robe Lowe sing some ungodly creation.
This is the Platonic ideal of an awful Oscar opening number. In 1989, Eileen Bowman played the animated heroine in an odyssey that included dancing stars, Merv Griffin, and a scandal-plauged Lowe singing strange tunes with the words all jumbled around. It's a travesty and you can't take your eyes away. For a full recounting of the whole incident, check out this amazing article.
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BEST
Michael Jackson sings "Ben" from Ben
Look past the cheesy '70s set and the awful glittery jump suit. Forget that this is a song about a man who is in love with his pet rat. When all that goes away, we're left with the pristine quality of Michael Jackson's voice before he messed it up with years of drugs and before he messed up his face with more plastic surgery than a Real Housewives of Everywhere reunion. This is one of those instances where talent gets past all of that, and we still love it.
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WORST
Bjork singing "I've Seen It All" from Dancer in the Dark
I have no problem with the swan dress. In fact, I kind of love that Bjork opted to wear something so different and daring that we still talk about it 12 years later. What I can't abide is her squawking around the stage and stamping her feet and singing this weirdly-cyclical, boring song. I know she can do so much better, and I'm sure most of the audience at home was as befuddled by the performance as they were the attire.
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BEST
Madonna singing "Sooner of Later" from Dick Tracy
Let's face it — it's best that Madonna never win an Oscar for acting. Really, we don't need to give her one more reason to make another movie. But as far as performing at the Oscars go, she is a champion. This is how you can captivate an audience while standing practically still in the middle of a stage. This is Madonna at the height of her fame and prowess in 1991, singing a beautiful Steven Sondheim song that won the Oscar later that night. To prove Madge is Oscar gold, check out her second performance of "You Must Love Me," from Evita. Not as good of a song, but still a top-notch performance.
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WORST
Gwyneth Paltrow singing "Coming Home" from Country Strong
Gwyneth Paltrow thinks that everything about her life is great, including her singing ability. She is often wrong.
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BEST/WORST
Celine Dion singing "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic
Yes, this is an iconic song. Yes, Celine Dion is a very proficent singer. Yes, in 1997 Ms. Dion was everything and her song won the Oscar. But why do I hate this so much? Why do so many people think that she sounds like a bleating goat standing there on stage with a trillion-dollar diamond (the same one from the movie) on her turtlenecked frame (you can take the girl out of Canada but...)? This is one of those numbers that you either love or hate. I fall in the latter camp.
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BEST
Pilobolus doing God knows what
This isn't exactly a musical number, but there's dancing, so I'm counting it. The members of this dance troupe figured out how to turn their bodies into iconic shapes from the year's movies. I still wonder just how they achieved this fate today. Amazing. Also amazing: Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars. Remember that?
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WORST
Kathleen Bird York singing "In the Deep" from Crash
2003 was a crappy year at the Oscars. Not only did Crash steal a statue from the far superior Brokeback Mountain, we also had to endure this abomination of an New Age song from the film that was nominated for Best Original Song. What do a burning car, slow-motion dancers, and enough dry ice to power every production of Phantom of the Opera in the entire universe have in common? I hate them all.
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BEST/WORST
Sheena Easton singing "For Your Eyes Only" from For Your Eyes Only
This year, one of the highlights of the show will be Adele getting up to sing "Skyfall" from the James Bond flick of the same name. She will wear a tasteful dress and belt for the rafters and everyone will applaud. It will look nothing like this other Bond number from 1981, which features 007 driving on stage and kicking the asses of a bunch of dancing ninjas while his car shoots a laser beams. And can we talk about Sheena's hair which is straight out of one of the worst Nagel paintings I've ever seen. This this is so incredibly awful. Isn't it amazing!? Even with the crappy video quality, you still can't look away. They just don't make camp like they used to. Sure Adele will be nice, but it's not going to be anything like this.
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WORST
Hugh Jackman's Opening Number
I love Hugh Jackman. Of all the celebrities in Hollywood, I would like to see his huge ackman over anyone else's. However, his 2008 stint hosting was marred by this rather dreadful opening number. The joke was that the recession made him scale everything down, which is a cute gag but doesn't work for the whole eight minutes. Combine that with Anne Hathaway giving one of those falsely modest performances that make people hate her and, well, I couldn't even watch it all the way through. However, the joke about not seeing The Reader almost makes the whole thing worthwhile.
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BEST
Neil Patrick Harris' Opening Number
Sorry, Hugh, this is how you bring in the show. NPH, who isn't even really a movie star, is better at the awards show game than just about anyone else. He sings a quick song, does some great dance moves, gets us ready for the show with a big extravaganza and then hands it over to the hosts. Just simply distilled perfection. Leave it to a gay to know how to kick off a show. (I'm sure he's not the one who had the Best Actor nominees come out on stage for one full minute of thunderous applause that they did not need.)
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WORST
"Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid
As soon as you heard that the dancers were choreographed by Paula Abdul, you knew this thing would be a mess. What's so awful about Samuel E. Wright's performance of these two nominated songs ("Under the Sea" won) is that he just stands in the middle of the blank stage for the first one, and for the second one it's like a sea anemone was stuffed with glitter and then exploded. There is an octopus chandelier, tap dancing scuba divers, and more midriffs than all of Britney Spears' early videos combined. The funny part is this looks like an even worse version of Disney's infamous Broadway version of the show, which was also a giant bomb.
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BEST
"Belle" and "Be Our Guest" from Beauty &amp; The Beast
Looks like Disney learned a lot two years after The Little Mermaid, because this two-song medley was much better. The first song is busy and costumey, sort of like the wonderful Broadway version of the show, but then it dissolves into Jerry Orbach (RIP) and some chorus girls doing a top-notch, grounded version of the crowd pleasing "Be Our Guest." Still this wasn't enough to beat the title track for the Oscar, which had a snoozer of a performance (Angela Landsbury can't do a kick line like she used to), but is probably a better song.
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WORST
Three 6 Mafia singing "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow
This isn't a bad song, and is, to its credit, the only hip-hop song to win an Oscar. It's just, well, the Academy ain't got no swag. Sure, this bootleg living room is supposed to be reminiscent of the movie, but it looks like a cast-off from an old season of Roseanne. Plus, Taraji P. Henson in a full-length gown while the rest of the guys wear street clothes makes the whole thing feel just... off. And they can't even say "bitches"! They had to change it to "witches," which is the silliest thing to happen since The Doors couldn't sing "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" on The Ed Sullivan Show.
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BEST
Glen Hansard and Market Iglová singing "Falling Slowly" from Once
Plain and simple: how can you not love everything about this?
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Love is a special sort of torture. And believe it or not, Community's trip to the nerdiest of all pursuits, The Inspector Spacetime convention, is the strongest foray into L-O-V-E in a long time.
Of course, it probably helps that Britta and Troy are sleeping together now, sending Troy and Abed into a relationship tailspin. Abed seems to be okay with the secret relationship at first, relishing in the fact that their refusal to tell him results in free morning donuts, but when Britta joins the duo as InspectorCon, the panic sets in. Part of that is due to the fact that Abed, in anticipation of Troy's probability of leaving him for Britta, contacts the world's greatest Inspector Spacetime fan, Toby (Matt Lucas of Little Britain and Bridesmaids fame). The problem is Toby is totally trying to steal Troy boyfran.
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Toby's evil plan involves magically appearing tickets to a sold-out panel and a false sob story about losing his Constable Reggie (Troy's counterpart to Abed's Inspector) to a woman, who he calls a total Minerva (the name of the only female Inspector is synonymous with b**ch because she sucks, not because they're sexist, of course). But it doesn't take long for Abed to realize that something's not right, and it helps that Toby calls Abed's friends "neurotypicals" and literally says that he and Abed are above them. Abed's BS meter goes off a little too late and Toby traps him in a wannabe TARDIS is hopes that Stockholm Syndrome's onset is only a few hours. But that's when the magic happens.
Abed knows Troy will find him, because that's who Troy is to him. When Britta finally does her job as the best girlfriend ever, cheering Troy up and telling him that his "crazy girlfriend" act is totally justified (and buying him that weird Inspector Spacetime toy that "light up and plays music or something!") before sending him off to get his Abed back, the heartwarming begins. Troy scares off Toby with his ability to actually make a fist (Toby only knows how to slap-fight), and Abed is reunited with his human counterpart, which he's realized is necessary as he and his somewhat alien disposition try to navigate regular human culture. What's great about this trio and the way they all learn to appreciate the way in which their relationships can support the other is that it's, in a sense, a wonderful picture that we can all comprehend, whether we've got an Abed or a Britta or both. Romantic relationships and those of extreme friendship require balance, compromise, and understanding, and here, under the light shining on a poster of Thoraxis, we found that timeless lesson.
Of course, it wasn't just something we learned from Troy, Abed, and Britta (wow, it's strange to write Troy and Abed without the "and" in the middle). Jeff and Annie do a little friendship soul-searching too, though their interaction this week will have the shippers going nuts. When Jeff decides to leave because their ski resort is shut down and he doesn't do nerd stuff like the InspectorCon, Annie heads up to their hotel room alone, where the room service attendant assumes she's Jeff's wife and the power of imagination goes to her head. Before we know it, she's got an elaborate back story for both of them (even something to explain their separate hotel rooms). The problem is that Jeff is downstairs being hit on by super Inspector fan Lauren (Battlestar Galactica alum Tricia Helfer), who thinks he's Nigel, the guy who plays Inspector super villain Thoraxis. The hotel staff loves Annie so much, they spill the beans on her "husband's" infidelity and she winds up throwing a drink in his face and scaring away his hot nerd lady. Season 3 Jeff would have stormed off immediately, never to return, but new Jeff (NEW JEFF!) sees the truth: Annie is a young woman desperately seeking her friend's attention that he so callously denied her when his "cool" plans fell through.
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He finds her, apologizes for ditching her and he even offers to buy her a drink: the dreaded, manhood diminishing appletini. Jeff begrudgingly orders it for his Zach-Efron-loving friend, which is the mark of true friendship. But there's enough hints of flirtation that those hoping Jeffannie will become a thing eventually just got some fuel for their fire.
Finally, Pierce and Shirley invite themselves along on the convention trip, even though the gang didn't invite them because they knew they wouldn't like it. They're immediately scooped up by a marketing team who knows they don't belong there and are ushered off to a hotel meeting room where they become the focus group for the American reboot of Inspector Spacetime. It's clear that this is an opportunity for Community to lament the tastes of mainstream America (the same tastes that kill their ratings despite being a smart, innovative comedy), as Pierce tells the market researchers that he wants simple, easy jokes and blondes with big breasts in his Inspector Spacetime. Shirley attempts to do the right thing and tell the marketers that the reason people like the original show is because it's smart and it doesn't talk down to its audience. Her words almost stick with the pencil pushers until Pierce has a genius idea: change Constable Reggie to a blonde with a Tennis racket! In the end, we find a CW/CBS-ified series starring Luke Perry and Jenni Garth as Abed's soul is slowly shattered into a million pieces. And while it's fun to get a little catharsis by making Pierce the face of whoever generates 15 million viewers for the Big Bang Theory while Community can barely crack 3 mill, it's the sad truth of the world of network television and no amount of on-point joking can change that.
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Still, "Conventions of Space and Time" is the sort of episode that makes you giddy NBC is letting this little show continue. Wrapped up in the silliness of an Inspector Spacetime convention is an episode that truly understands the delicacy of human relationships, both those with other humans and those with television shows that arrest them so heartily. If this is the beginning of the end, and there is no Season 5, at least Community is going out on a note that speaks so heartily to its adoring fans.
Grading on a Curve
A+: Britta (yes, actually)
“Do they even have to talk? They could just touch tentacles and download.” +20 (solid burn, girl)
“You are not being crazy, that dude is trying to steal your boyfriend.” -Britta being the best girlfriend ever +300
“I’ve told you before (breathy whisper) I don’t care about Inspector Spacetime.” +20
Britta is the best girlfriend. Mean it. +1000
Total: 1340 points
A: Jeff (Yes, Actually)
“Jeff why is everyone staring at you?” -Britta “Because they’ve never see a man who’s had sex before?” -Jeff -30
Jeff’s move to “practice his American accent” for an audition. A reluctant +20
“Is that my actual hair? And if it is, did it fall out naturally? Because if it did, tell me right now because I have to call science.” -Jeff +30
“If we were married, you would not find me flirting with some woman in a hotel bar.” -Jeff to Annie after their faux-marriage debacle +100
Buys Annie the appletini, potentially wounding manhood. +50
Jeff stands on stage as Thoraxis. +100 nerd points
Rips his shirt open while doing it. -15 for vanity
Total: 255 points
A-: Troy
“Are you sure it’s okay Britta is here because she can just wait in the car.” -Troy -20 (but still hilarious)
“It’s Troy. It’s the first word in Troy and Abed! Toby and Abed in the Morning? That’s ridiculous! I am not psycho!” -Troy +60 for Troy and Abed in the Morning reference and the fact that rage Troy is the best kind of Troy
Troy simply knows that Abed is in the phone booth. +100
“I always say if you love someone, set them free, if they don’t come back, they were never yours to begin with.” -Britta “That makes no sense. What if they get hit by a car or fall down a well? Remind me to never put you down as my emergency contact.” -Troy +75
Total: 210
B:Abed
Abed knows that Troy and Britta are sneaking around on him but he lets them keep up the charade to get free donuts. +10
Abed is so trusting that he buys the Nigerian cry for help email, but it actually turns out to be real. +50 (because, aww)
“Cadbury Cream Eggs are sold all year round there.” is a selling point for Abed -50 (ew)
“If I could Winger you for a second?” -Abed (as he squints his eyes slightly and makes his voice just slightly more gravelly) +15
Abed’s distress noise sounds like R2D2 +10
Abed's realization that regular humans are super important to his strange lifestyle. +100
Total: 125 points
C: Annie
Annie’s alter ego is as a world famous police detective. +50
“Mmm, tastes of... fog.” -Annie drinking scotch +15
Annie has a Charlie St Cloud poster in her bedroom. -15
Annie’s attention to detail: she takes bites out of both dishes to make sure it looks like there’s been a couple hanging out in the room. +30 crazy points
Total: 80 points
C: Shirley
Shirley’s ominous comment, in reference to the ruined Inspector Spacetime spin-off: “Just remember, Abed. I did my best.” +50
Total: 50 points
D: Pierce (Doing better, buddy!)
“See, it’s funny because it’s clear.” -Pierce, helping to ruin Inspector Spacetime for America -100
Pierce lays face-down when the entire room obeys Jeff’s “Bow before Thoraxis” command +20
Luke Perry and Jenni Garth are the bimbo leads of America’s Inspector Spacetime (Pierce’s fault) -1000
Total: -1080 points
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
[Photo Credit: Vivian Zink/NBC]
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Happy White Party, everyone! No, no, it's not a gay circuit party in Palm Springs (though that, too, is a White Party) or a gay circuit party in Miami (though that, too, is a White Party) or a sale at Bed Bath and Beyoncé (though that, too, is the Whites Party) or the KKK (thought that, too, is a party of whites). No, this is Kyle Richard's White Party a social event that is as hotly anticipated as, I don't know, the spring formal at a Junior College? The Cupcake Day fundraiser at your child's school? Something like that. Aren't you so excited for the White Party? Sure you are.
I believe that when it started all those years ago, it was for charity or something, but now it's just a party in Kyle's backyard where her friends clog her street with limousines and all her neighbors pull their curtains tight passive aggressively and try to scowl at Kyle while ignoring the bad house music remixes that waft across their hedges and over the invisible barriers of their property. Yes, now it is just a party where Kyle celebrates everything that is white. Mostly white people. Oh, and Brandi Glanville's black friends Etirsa and Byron Allen, that guy who hosts those syndicated interview shows that air at 1 AM on Sunday night (Monday morning) when you should be in bed, but you are up just dreading the bitchy email you're going to have to send to your staff on Monday morning because you slept until noon Sunday afternoon after the bender on Saturday night. Why, oh why, can't weekends last forever?
Okay, so Kyle threw the White Party which is, well, it's just an excuse for people to get together, put on their alabaster outfits, and drape themselves in garlands of jewels and have a little party while Kyle and her off-White husband float in an inflatable island in the middle of the pool. Oh, and to fight. Yes, and since the fight this season is about Brandi and Adrienne Maloof's lawsuit, I am just going to break this down point by point so that we can refry these tired old beans once more and eat them in a taco of our own disgust.
We interrupt this recap to bring you this announcement from the producers of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster. There will be no new episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster this week. Please tune in next week for a very special episode Yolanda Bananas Foster's Refrigerator Odyssey Starring Yolanda Bananas Foster and the Aryan Race Players.
Okay, here are all the points we need to discuss about the White Party.
1. This time Brandi was smart enough to bring proof. Sure it was some dusty old emails printed out and folded into her purse, but like a good lady who doesn't have the money to hire her own lawyer, she is Erin Brockoviching this s*** and got documentation. Her emails prove that Bernie, Adrienne's cook, is selling stories about Brandi. So, Adrienne, the Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live under the mountain and are cooked by a man named Bernie) is busted on that one and she needs to fire him like she said she was going to.
2. Adrienne essentially admitted that she sent Brandi a cease and desist letter and she said, "A letter is different than a lawsuit." Yes, it is, Adrienne, but now you acknowledge the letter when last week at the Tea Party of Doom you said there was no letter. So, Adrienne is a liar because there was a letter and she knew there was a letter all along and trying to make herself look blameless is just making her look worse (which is something her nose already accomplishes). And when she said, "I had to hire a lawyer too. I wish I didn't have to hire a lawyer," I wanted to take one of her 65% off discount shoes and bat her on the side of the head with it. If she didn't want to hire a lawyer, she shouldn't have hired a lawyer! She, and her legions of lawyers, started it.
3. What sort of lawyer is Brandi going to that she had to pay $10,000? Can't she just go out on a date with an ugly lawyer from somewhere and get some "free" legal advice?
4. Brandi said, "I don't want to have to hire any more lawyers." Adrienne's husband, Paullo the chimp, responded, "Well, then don't go running your mouth off." Okay, this is why Adrienne and Paullo are the worst kind of rich people. They think that because they can afford legions of lawyers (more like a million of Paullo's brothers all pounding at typewriters trying to write a subpoena) that they can intimidate people into saying whatever they want or not saying whatever they want. Like Brandi said, "Welcome to the United States of [bleeping] America." People can say whatever they want and people can also sue as much as they want, but it doesn't mean that because someone is rich and can sue, they should do it to shut people up. That's just the worst kind of capitalism.
5. Thank god for Ken Vanderpump who is so rich that he can tell Adrienne and Paullo to go Vanderpump themselves for what they're doing to Brandi. He can't be intimidated. He has his own money and his own lawyers so he can speak his mind. He echoed their line from last season: (more on that in a second) "Friends don't sue friends." He told them to stop using their money to intimidate Brandi into doing their bidding.
6. Adrienne wears so much self tanner that when she comes over to Lisa's house and sits on the furniture she leaves giant stains that Lisa can't get off and Lisa had to have her white sofa reupholstered, which HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA chortle chortle sputter gag death. I am dead from laughing. My ghost is writing this using a Ouija Board and my intern is transcribing. Adrienne just killed me. And then she told Lisa, "Oh, it happens to me all the time. Just use baby wipes, it comes right off." Now I am back from the dead so that I have a corporal hand with which to punch Adrienne so hard that her spray tan falls off and collects around her feet like a little puddle of liquid flesh.
7. Alright, I hate to say it but the Widow Armstrong is right. What Adrienne and Paullo are doing to Brandi is exactly what happened to her last year at the White Party. Her late husband Russell sent St. Camille a letter saying that he would sue her for telling the truth on camera and because of that letter, Adrienne and Paul lead the charge to have Kyle kick her out of the party. Because they sent the same letter to Brandi, Kyle should have kicked them out of the party too. But she did not, because not everyone hates Adrienne like they did Russell. Kyle is a hypocrite (but at least she finally understands that Adrienne is a jerk to sue Brandi). Adrienne is a hypocrite. So is Bravo, who aired Camille's allegation against a dead man (who can't sue), but still won't show us what Brandi said about Adrienne that caused this whole fight because, well, Adrienne and Paullo are the worst type of rich people and they are intimidating Bravo with their lawyers too.
8. This is all still about the "Maloof Hoof." Yes, it is. That is what it all comes back to. Ken told Paullo that they could have sued them for saying Lisa sold stories to the press, but they didn't even though their lies hurt his business (which I don't really believe, but a good defense, Ken), because friends don't sue friends. Paullo shot back, "Yeah, like the Maloof Hoof." That is what this fight is all about. Because of that remark, Adrienne decided to go after Lisa and enlisted Brandi. When Brandi wouldn't go along with it we started this slow decline into protracted trench warfare that we've been watching this whole season. Yes, it all comes back to the "Maloof Hoof." So, no matter how many times we break it down, the plot line of this entire season boils down to this: Adrienne Maloof is a joyless succubus who can not take a joke. That's it. That's the entirety of it. Cased closed.
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Speaking of how dumb Adrienne is, she also felt the need to flee her house because the mansion next to hers, the one formerly owned by the Vanderpump clan, was on fire. Sure, it was a giant blaze and took 100 fire fighters to put it out, but come on, Adrienne. She thought the fire would "jump" over to her house. Do you know how many embers would have to float on the breeze to travel the 17 acres between Lisa's house and hers? It would have to fly past the tennis court, over the gate, over Adrienne's expansive lawn, over her dogs that she also can't take jokes and land on her roof. Do you know how far that is? It is further than the logical leap Adrienne makes to show how what she is doing to Brandi is different from what Taylor and Russell did last year. That's how far it is. It is farther than the stars.
And what was up with the older kids who were hanging out with Adrienne and Paullo's children (who were definitely absolutely in no way whatsoever born by a surrogate)? Who were they? Was one old enough to lust after? Please say yes. And what was up with blurring the faces of Adrienne's kids? She obviously agreed to have them filmed in the first place, but is that the blur of contention now that she and Paullo are getting a divorce? I think I see the mark of the beast upon them.
{DING DONG} Oh, what was that? It was my doorbell. Oh, there is a messenger here and he just handed me an envelope. Oh, what is this? It's an engraved invitation. "You are hereby invited to a party at the home of Ms. Kim Richards (not to be confused with her daughter Ms. Kimberly Richards) where she will be unveiling the identity of her new nose. She knows that you nose that she knows noses and would be honored if you could join her at her humble abode on Monday, February 18, at 7 PM. RSVP, regrets only."
Oh, why I would love to attend! Thank you, Kim. It also just dawned on me that if Kim Richards were to ever have her own reality show, it should be called "Regrets Only." Just saying.
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When we arrived at Kim's party she was not making her signature dish, a hand-tossed chicken salad that no one will eat. Instead she was giving instructions as to what drinks should be made at the espresso bar (no alcohol at this here shindiggerino) and lighting the candles for the plastic floating flowers that were to go in her pool.
The guests start filtering in and Kim is still puttering about with a bandage over her nose, waiting to show the world what lies underneath and we get to meet her dog, Kingsley, who is just as badly behaved as you would imagine Kim Richards' dog would be. Kyle came over and said, "What happened with the dog and your nose?" And Kim replies, "Well, it had to be completely redone and this is all because you once said that I have a really ugly nose and I need to get it done for you." Me-ow. Oh, wait, this is about a dog. Ba-ark.
Then there's a call from the Widow Armstrong and, well, ironically it is a Kim Richards call to Kim Richards' party. You know the Kim Richards call, when your friend phones you up all drunk with some stupid excuse why she can't meet you. We've all gotten that call. Kim perfected it, but now the Widow Armstrong is taking over. "He guys. Sorry, I can't come to the party because I met this guy two days ago and he was like, 'Hey, let's go to Beaver Creek for the weekend,' and at first I thought he meant like 'Beaver Creek,' like he just wanted to go down on me for days, but apparently Beaver Creek is a real place and we're going. We're on our way to the airport now, so I can't make the party, I hope you understand."
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Kyle, who brought the Widow Armstrong's daughter Kennedy to the Only the Nose Knows Noses party responds, "Oh, well, do you want Kennedy to spend the night at my house?" And the Widow Armstrong says, "Oh, she's with you?! Oh, then I guess that's OK. Thanks Kyle, you're the best. Even though I threw mad shade at you last week about kicking me out of your White Party, thank you for taking care of my misplaced offspring. Oh, look, champers! Gots to go. Oh, I'll be back in time for the White Party, don't you worry. Byesies!!"
Okay, that is all just sad. Everything that happened there is like your soul falling out of your body and being trampled on by a stampede of wildebeests. That's what everything the Widow Armstrong just said should feel like. But she's so drunk all she feels is that warmth and vague car-sickness that goes with a good buzz.
Kyle and Kim then have to talk about this development with all the ladies there and Adrienne has the gaul to laugh at the Widow Armstrong. Yes, a woman — who lies about suing people and has a chef who sells stories about her guests to the tabloids and who you have to baby wipe the furniture after is — laughing at someone else. That's rich. Faye Resnick opened her mouth and a flood of hornets came out with a deadly buzz and then she shut up and the cloud of insects just dissipated into the night. Fetch had some sort of opinion on the whole matter, but who the hell cares what this bitch has to say? I mean, at least get a $25K pair of sunglasses or something.
Into the party comes a man looking like a combination between Lurch from The Addams Family and that guy in the horror movie who controls rats. It's Kim's doctor and he's there with some hot piece to take off Kim's bandage at her house. They go off into her bedroom. Kim takes Brooke, her daughter who looks just like her, and the doctor slowly takes off the bandages by rubbing a Q-Tip underneath them. Kim looks into the mirror like she's on The Swan and she's catching a glimpse of her new face for the first time. "Oh, look at me!" Kim yells. I look so young and so fresh. My hair is so straight and blond, but, wait... I still have my old nose. Why is there still that small bump in my nose?"
"Mom, that's me," Brooke says. "You're looking at me!"
"Oh," Kim says. "Oh..." And she sort of trails off and touches her face, pushing it up at the cheeks as if it was moldable clay. She stares quietly, wondering why it wasn't all fixed, why she didn't look as different as she felt. She just has a fleshy putty nose. But she has to go outside. She walks out onto the lanai and everyone is waiting for her, standing around for the big reveal and she shows up and... There it is. There is her nose. It just looks, well, normal. Congrats, Kim. You now have the exact same nose as every other woman in Beverly Hills. Your face is now perfectly bland. Three cheers!
Kim goes around the party and everyone congratulates her. Well, everyone except for Adrienne, who says three times that her husband Paul could have done a better job. Oh, and why didn't Kim convalesce at the Palms while she's at it? Maybe take in a Sacramento Kings game. God, Adrienne, shut up. The only other person who hates it is Kim's niece Portia. Kyle's daughter is petrified of plastic surgery. Something about seeing the people that she knows best with faces that are singed with lasers, burned with chemicals, and sculpted with invasive procedures just freaks out this four-year-old. She doesn't like when the people she love turn into stretched-faced ghoul people. What could possibly be wrong with her?
Everyone packs up and leaves the party and no one touched Kim's chicken salad. It sat there in a bowl untouched by any hands other than Kim's. Now it's time to clean up, pack up the espresso bar, collect all the floating candles out of the pool. Kim hikes up her sundress and squats down on the concrete surrounding the water. She paddles the water slightly, sending ripples out into it and drawing all the floating flowers towards her. She pulls them out one by one, blowing out the candle and stacking them next to her.
There's only one flower left and it's slowly bobbing around the water, just in the middle. Kim's rowing is doing nothing but making it jostle back and forth, the tea light swaying and casting cascading shadows as it shakes. She stops and just waits, there on her haunches. She looks out onto the deck and thinks about Taylor. She thinks about her on some plane with a man on her way to Beaver Creek. She thinks about her looking out of the window of the plane and just seeing darkness below. That darkness that is pocked with strange flecks of light, like a little bit of glitter dusted on a jacket. Either that or a star embedded in the soil, burning everything around it. She thinks about Taylor looking back at that man and reaching for another glass, wondering where they're going to end up and not caring, not caring if the plane just silently drops out of the sky like a stone and embeds itself into the earth — burning, not so much like a star, but like a pyre. She thinks of Taylor wanting to purge herself and not knowing how. She thinks about that plane.
And she looks out at the last flower and it exhausts her. She looks down at the water and sees her face, this strange face looking back at her. Kim doesn't know how she got so old. She really thought she was Brooke for a second. That's how she remembers herself. That's the only way she sees herself. People say that the years go by so quickly, but that's not true. It's so slow. It's so slow and it happens one line at a time, no, one cell at a time. Each one stretching out and dying. She takes a deep breath and exhales out her nose. "I can breathe again," she says to no one listening. "I can breathe." She lets out another deep snort and it finally sends the flower across the pool to the far edge. Kim gets up and her knees pop. She pads over to the other side and plucks out the final flower from her pool. She lets out another breath to extinguish the flame and it just shimmys away from her and fades but then stands upright once again. It's never easy for Kim. And she can never get it done right the first time.
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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My only regret about seeing Safe Haven wasn't just seeing it in the first place, but that I didn't take a big group of friends to experience this utter madness with me. When it was over all I wanted to do was discuss those enormous and plentiful plot holes, the outdated settings (seriously, did no one in Southport own a cell phone?), and that totally banana pants crazy twist ending. But, now that some of you have witnessed this piece of cinematic lunacy for yourselves over this Valentine's weekend, I can talk about it you guys. That said, if you haven't seen Safe Haven yet and would like to remain unspoiled, leave now as there are MASSIVE, CRAZY SPOILERS AHEAD.
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If you are still reading that means one thing, you saw Safe Haven and are still trying to wrap your mind the ending in which Katie/Erin (Julianne Hough) discovers that her friendly neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders) turned out to be a... g-g-g-g-ghost! Not just any ghost though, the ghost of her boyfriend Alex's (Josh Duhamel) deceased wife and mother of his children Lexi and Josh. I'd call this a record-scratching moment, but I'm not sure record players have even made it to Southport yet, so maybe a phonograph-interrupting moment.
Now, here's why this is so creepy and ridiculous for a bevy of reasons. First, let's look back at how Jo and Katie (I'm dropping the Erin, as we know her as Katie for most of the flick) met. Jo is on the porch of Katie's dilapidated house, peering in through the window, which is completely stupid in and of itself. Isn't one of the main advantages of being a ghost is that you can just kind of go in places the still living can't, like the mall after closing hours? I gather Jo was just doing recon at this point: who was this mysterious blonde girl making eyes at my husband? Can she be trusted around my precocious youngsters?
Now, the answer to that immediately should have been no, as Katie is someone who literally arrives in town with a duffel bag and nothing else and whose idea of a home repair to fix a giant hole in her floor was to paint over it. (Wha?) But Jo seemed to like something about Katie and started to nudge her to be with her widowed husband when he started to do grand, romantic gestures for her like...drop of a bike in her driveway in the middle of the night. (Whaaa?)
Okay, fine, so Jo just wanted Alex to find love again and for her kids to have a mother figure, fair enough. But does that mean Jo, WHO ONLY KATIE COULD SEE (more on that in a bit), used her ghostly powers to get Katie to not get back on the bus and stay in Southport when she escaped from home (more on that in a bit, too)? After all, Jo revealed herself to have some ghostly powers throughout, even if we weren't aware that was it at the time.
For instance, when Katie's abusive, alcoholic husband Kevin (David Lyons) tracks her down and spots her gallivanting around town with Alex, Jo appears out of nowhere like a damn ghost to warn her that "he's here." Wait, how the hell did she know what Kevin looked like? Better yet, Katie never explicitly told Jo about her past with Kevin, so how did she know who he was and that he was trouble? Now, Katie did open up to Alex about her abuse from Kevin as they laid in bed together one night. So does that mean Jo was just hanging around for that conversation and put the pieces together? If so, creepy. Way creepy.
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But that wasn't even my biggest issue with the story line of Jo, the friendly, if not romance meddling ghost. When Katie was falling in love with Alex, how did she never bring up her only friend in town to him? Wouldn'tshe, at some point, have told Alex that she and her friend Jo went for a long walk in the afternoon? I think the conversation probably would have gone a little something like this:
Katie: "I hung out with my friend Jo today. We only hang out at my house, she is my neighbor, though I've never actually seen her place."
Alex: "Jo? Oh my gosh, that's my dead wife's name. The one who died from cancer, remember?"
Katie: "Oh my gosh, that's so strange. Anyway, Jo kept talking in ominous, blanket statements like 'The nice thing about life is you get second chances.'"
Alex: "Okay, that's really weird. Just out of curiosity, what does she look like?"
Katie: "Well, she's brunette and very beautiful. You ever watch How I Met Your Mother? Wait, who am I kidding, no one in this stupid quaint and sleepy town owns a television. Anyway, she looks like the one who plays Robin."
Alex, takes out a picture of his dead wife Jo: "You mean...she looks like her?"
Katie: "Um, holy s**t, that is her!"
Alex: "Holy s**t."
Holy s**t. Also, never mind the fact that Katie and Jo went on a ton of walks through town, meaning Katie was more or less talking to herself and that didn't seem to alarm the townsfolk at all. "You wanna get a coffee? No?" or "How come you haven't left town for so long?" Oh right, because you're a ghost. Why couldn't Alex or his children see their beloved Jo, but Katie could? She definitely has a sixth sense, yes?
NEXT: More WTF moments from Safe Haven
And, sure, the spirit of the dead wife plot twist is completely insane and utterly terrifying in and of itself (when Katie put two and two together, how did she not freak out? Wouldn't she have to tell Alex at some point she'd been communicating with his dead wife?) but that was hardly the only plot hole or ridiculous scene in the movie. After all, this is a Nicholas Sparks story, so the absurdity is plentiful. Here are some other WTF moments from Safe Haven to ponder:
- When we still think that Katie has murdered her husband and is on the run and that Kevin is just a cop determined to track down this killer and bring justice, he relentlessly questions Katie's neighbors regarding her whereabouts. He introduces himself as a cop and asks a kindly elderly woman if she recognizes Katie, which would make sense if he also wasn't their neighbor and he wouldn't be talking about Katie to them like she was a total stranger. He wouldn't have to piece together the clues that the neighbor actually definitely knows who Katie is, because that's his neighbor, too. They all totally know each other. All that said, you have to appreciate any movie where cherries are the smoking gun (wait...the neighbor has a cherry tree...and my wife made cherry pie...got it!) even if it makes absolutely no sense.
- When Katie is making her great escape, she bumps into a stranger at a busy Boston bus depot. Not only does the man recognize her face when he's shown a picture by Kevin (honestly, who the hell can remember one of many faces they see in day-to-day city life), but the stranger also suggests she had blonde hair. If that was the case, that he bumped into a pretty blond girl, how would he recognize this other pretty brunette girl? Ah yes, because he is a Convenient Plot Device.
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- Katie, despite completely changing her identity and presumably not wanting to leave a paper trail, somehow buys a house. Which name did she use on the deed? Wouldn't a Google search have come up that Erin, her real name, now resided at this crappy house in Southport? Better yet, how in the world did she buy it after, like, three shifts at her waitressing job?
- When Alex and Katie have a romantic dinner the entire waitstaff seems to disappear, where did they go? Wouldn't they have locked up? The music is still playing, so someone still must be there? Why didn't this totally freak Alex and Katie out? Did they dine and ditch when their ride showed up? Jerks.
- Okay, fine, Alex wasn't thrilled about the idea of Katie being around his kids when he just thought she was a murderer and then definitely let it slide when she became an actual murderer, but how does he explain the whole name switcheroo to his kids? Will they continue to call her Katie? Or will she go back to being Erin and they all just sidestep that whole murder thing? I mean she is cute and the kids like her so much, so...
Like I said, this movie is a totally bonkers ghost visitor/murder mystery tale that is somehow masquerading as a sappy romantic drama. What did you think of the ending and the numerous plot holes in Safe Haven? Share in the comments section below.
Follow Aly on Twitter @AlySemigran
[Photo credit: Relativity Media]
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It's an impressive feat for a movie to be strange and forgettable, subversive yet littered with crass product placement. Escape from Planet Earth manages to be all of these things and more. In this world, aliens are abducted by government officials, Roswell is an intergalactic work camp, an Army general is conducting an online affair with a sexy alien lady, and the stoners who work or hang out or whatever at 7-11 ply their new little blue friend with a matching blue Slurpee. Sounds promising, right?
Not entirely. For the most part, the plodding plot is driven by a lackluster sibling rivalry between Gary Supernova (Rob Corddry) and his lantern-jawed brother Scorch (Brendan Fraser). These little blue dudes live on the planet Baab and work at BASA, which is (obviously) Baab's version of NASA. Gary's the nerdy mission control guy who saves his brother's butt when Scorch is off being a bad ass astronaut. A plodding series of events lands them both on Earth, a planet full of violent, devolved creatures where aliens from across the galaxy routinely go missing. There, they find the devious General Shanker (William Shatner) is snatching otherwise peaceful aliens and putting them to work on building a giant weapon that will destroy the universe. The other aliens Gary and Scorch run into are way more interesting and fun than the folks they left behind on Baab — a cafeteria food fight between Roswell employees and the aliens is more entertaining than 90% of the interactions between Gary and Scorch — which is a bummer since Gary's wife Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) is hot on their heels to rescue them. Lena, the head of BASA, is a lovelorn villainess (Jessica Alba) who would be willing to blow up the world for a hot human with an Elvis pompadour that she met online. She and Kira used to be coworkers but now Lena's like, whatever, now you're a stay-at-home mom! And Kira's like, I will kick your butt. And so on. The female characters in the movie are pretty decent, all things considered.
Still, Escape from Planet Earth is a bit of a mess. Are we rooting for family values? Or railing against how silly humans are? Or constantly, odiously plugging 7-11? There is also auto-tuned music on the soundtrack, although it's not clear if this was yet another invention of the aliens (like the iPhone, Facebook, the Internet, and Pixar, according to one montage) or yet another example of how humans have devolved. Adding to the confusion: a sexy news reporter alien voiced by Sofía Vergara.
Escape from Plant Earth seems like its plot was originally cooked up by some sorta cool goofy dudes — I mean, Steve Zahn and Chris Parnell as stoners who work at 7-11? Pretty funny! — that was then wrangled into something a little more family-friendly. (Vis the website, which is littered with seals of approval from the Parents Television Council and the Dove Foundation.) It's not that it's particularly bad, it's just not something that sticks with you in any meaningful way. The rest of the voice cast is pretty good, like Craig Robinson as a cool talk radio "therapist" alien and Jane Lynch as a one-eyed librarian from the sun with anger management problems. It's just that there's so much other stuff happening that isn't particularly gripping. Like the crux of the entire story. Who cares if Gary and Scorch ever make up? Who cares that Kip thinks his dad is a pantywaist? You really don't. In a world where film-lovers of all ages can be challenged, entertained, and moved by animated film, it's entirely fair to expect more of family films.
(Escape from Planet Earth is available in 3D, but for expediency's sake, I saw the 2D version.)
2.5/5
[Photo Credit: The Weinstein Company]
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You know how they say the anticipation is greater than the act? I don't think "they" (whoever they are) are talking about that tingling sensation you get in your undies when you're making out with a new person and you know it's going to go there, and then you get there and, well, the fireworks were more like a damp sparkler that you found in the back of the shed and lit with a match. They weren't talking about that. They were talking about Lisa Vanderpump's annual Tea Party of Death on The Real Rose Swillers of Petit Four Junction. The event was all anticipation and then when we got there, it was like Debbie Downer's quinceañera.
God, this whole episode was just a bunch of bluster, like a wind filling a plastic bag (and not in that cute American Beauty way, but like when it blows against your leg on a windy day and you can't shake it off). What even happened before the party? Kyle's clothes fell all over the floor because she has so much clothing that it can't even fit in her gargantuan closet, so she needs to have it on a nasty little rack in the hallway. It's as if her master suite doubles as a thrift store somewhere on Melrose that specializes in blouses where the sleeves won't close all the way. Then Kyle, looking like a space priestess from a '70s B-movie, went over to visit Lisa Vanderpump and the two have to talk it out. Kyle thinks that Lisa is holding a grudge against Kyle for when Kyle didn't defend her against Adrienne saying that Lisa sells stories to the tabloids. (Oh, man, I had to take a big breath to get all of that out.) Lisa thinks that, yes, her problem is exactly that Kyle won't stick up for her and now she can't trust Kyle and she is mad that Kyle didn't defend Lisa against St. Camille, saying that Lisa doesn't own her restaurants. (Oh, another deep breath.)
Yes, this is all true and Kyle should just admit she was wrong and feels bad about it and let the two of them move on. Of all the Housewives, Lisa is usually one of the most game and forgiving. Also, she is everyone's favorite and getting on her bad side isn't the best bit of business for Ms. Richards-Umansky. Revealingly, Kyle also said that "friendships are like a balancing act." No, Kyle, friendships are not like that. People don't have to balance who is right and who is wrong or who they like better or who they want to ally with. Housewives have to do that. And it's only a balancing act for Kyle because she has the inexplicable need to have everyone like her all the time which, ultimately, makes her kind of unlikeable. So while she's going around trying to make sure everyone is happy and gets along, she just creates more drama. The funny thing is, she's never in the center of the drama. She's like the wizard in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, flailing her arms about in her castle, making the tides rage and flood and the lightening crash all around her.
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We interrupt this recap to bring you the latest episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster. On this week's episode, Yolanda Banana's Foster, America's premiere agoraphobic gourmand, actually left her house. She took her daughter Bella riding and she jumped all around the dressage gates on Lego, a steed not named after plastic blocks but what Yolanda makes her children to do Eggo waffles. Oh, poor Yolanda. If only she could afford three or four horses for her daughters like the other moms at the equestrian school. Yolanda invited over her friend Brandi, who is worried about going to a tea party. Yolanda told her what to wear, what sort of cakes to make, and how she can introduce the Master Race Cleanse into conversation. She gave Brandi seven magic lemons to bring to the tea party.
Then Yolanda used her greatest power as a hostess, the power of perception. Lately she has been able to see into the souls of the women on this show with a clarity that is usually reserved for psychics and reality television bloggers. She said, "Adrienne, Queen of the Maloofs (which I hear are a race of mole people who live under the mountain), is an insecure person who is using her status to intimidate people." That's it. That is it right there. That is all you need to know about Adrienne — wrap it up, send it to the Post Office, and set it on fire. We're done here. Thank you Yolanda, for summing it up so nicely. Then Brandi pleaded for Yolanda to come to the tea party with her. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I can't. David and I are going out of the country." And that concludes this week's episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster.
Okay, so everyone showed up at Lisa's Tea Party, starting with Brandi, who is girding her loins for her first interaction with Adrienne since Adrienne maybe or maybe not sued her for maybe possibly saying that Adrienne, I don't know, kind of allegedly had her children through a surrogate? The widow Armstrong showed up next and all she could talk about is how Lisa's tea party last year ended up being all about the abuse in her life. Poor Taylor, in her big black Victorian mourning costume with the black fringe and the bustle — it's hard to be her with her ebon parasol propped up against her shoulder. She is only living the glory of her past last season when it was all about her. Even when Kyle brings up the annual White Party later in the afternoon (oh my god, is it time for the White Party again already?!), Taylor says, "Remember last year when you told me I couldn't come in?!" It's always "remember last year" with this one. No wonder there is discussion that she won't be coming back.
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There is an amusing little interlude during which Brandi takes the Widow Armstrong on a tour of Villa Rosa, Lisa's "pink house," and they linger in Lisa's closet like they're Jodie Foster and the Golden Globes aren't happening any time in the near future. This thing is a modern marvel right up there with the Burj Dubai, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Yolanda Bananas Foster's refrigerator. Who gets to have a room like this? Only Lisa. The rest of us stand jealous for eternity.
Brandi and Lisa and the Widow Armstrong and St. Camille were all hanging out with Fetch, who was there because, ugh, I guess she has to be, when the Holy Triumvirate of Terror arrived: Kyle, Adrienne, and the morally corrupt Faye Resnick, who wasn't even invited. Is it just me or does Faye Resnick look just like an orc from a Lord of the Rings movie? She's like an orc in a wig. The big drama is that Lisa did not invite Faye and she showed up anyway, which is the only way that Faye ever gets to attend parties. She was rather well-behaved though, even though she looked down her nose at everyone. It's not that she thinks she's better than them (she does), it's just that her nose has been shaved and her eyes pulled tight so many times that she is forced, anatomically, to look down her nose at the world.
Everyone sat down and Lisa really wanted everyone to get along for some reason. God, don't these ladies know how these things go? Adrienne was just as deluded, saying, "This really isn't the place to discuss my issues with Brandi." Really? It's not? Well, then what the hell are you doing here? So everyone just sat there and seethed and gritted through their teeth like they're trying to hold in a Guinness Book of World Records fart. Finally Taylor lets it out, making some snide remark about how Adrienne sues everyone. That was the key that opened that whole door.
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Lisa made a big show about getting Brandi and Taylor to follow her away from the table and they go and stand in front of Jax and Peter, who are there to lure the women with their big muscles and remind all of us to watch The Vanderpump Chronicles. Lisa told Taylor and Brandi to knock it off and don't stir trouble and Brandi was like, "Double you, tee, eff, Lisa. I'm behaving!" And she was! Back at the table the ladies were already talking s**t about Brandi and Adrienne is all like, "I'm not suing her. Is she saying I'm suing her? I'm not suing her."
So Lisa, Brandi, and Taylor all sat back down and Taylor goes right back to it. What is her horse in this race? Why does Taylor care? Why is she stirring this up? If Adrienne and Brandi want to ignore each other and pretend it's not happening, why is she pressing the issue? It makes no sense to me.
Alright, the rest of the argument went like this: Brandi says Adrienne is suing her and Adrienne says, "No, that's not true." Okay, this is a lawyer trick. Adrienne is saying, "I'm not suing you," and she means she has not filed an actual lawsuit. Brandi says that Adrienne's lawyer sent Brandi's lawyer a letter and I honestly believe that is true. It isn't a lawsuit, per se, but it is the threat of one. That is just as bad and Adrienne doesn't understand how that is harassment. And still she feigns innocent like she has no idea what is happening.
The next item on the agenda is that Adrienne is upset about a Twitter that Brandi Twittered about how Bernie, Adrienne's a**hole chef who hates Lisa, is going around trying to sell stories to the tabloids about Brandi. Brandi denies Twittering the Twitter. Okay, well, Bravo handily provides the Twitter for us on the screen so we can see that Brandi Twittered it. (Hey, Bravo, where is the copy of the letter Brandi's lawyer got so we can determine whether or not that is true? Why are you on Adrienne's side?) Adrienne says this story is not true. I don't know who to believe. I believe that Brandi thinks this is true and if it is, I don't blame her for fighting against it. And she has nothing but Adrienne's word that it isn't true. Why should Brandi take Adrienne's word on anything?
What the whole fight came down to is this: Brandi saying, "You sued me!" and Adrienne saying, "Nuh uh! Twitter!" and then Brandi replying, "Nuh uh! Bernie!" and Lisa saying, "Nuh uh! You should be ashamed of yourself! Ashamed." That was the whole fight. We are now adult humans discussing, at length, a fight about a Twitter about whether or not someone's personal chef sold a story about someone to a tabloid. I sort of wish the Widow Armstrong would finally snap and blow them all away with a shotgun. I mean, this is just getting tedious. But then it all ended and on her way out, Kyle said, "Don't forget about the White Party next week, everyone. Byesies!!" My heart was once again full of joy.
Just as Lisa is cleaning up... oh, hahaha. Lisa never cleans up anything. Just as Lisa is standing over the table watching the maid clean up the finger sandwiches and tea cups and little frosted cakes that no one ever ate, the phone rings. She rushes inside with that Carrie Bradshaw trot that you can do only when running in high heels and a tight skirt. She answers the phone while it's still on the wall and puts it on speaker like it's an intercom. "Lisha, it's Kim," Kim says, slurring through the phone. "I can't make the party because, well, I got hit in the face. Well, not, like, hit. I was on my way there and I got hit, not by a car or a person, but my new dog. He, like, jumped up and hit me in my face, but it wasn't a hit, it was more like a really hard lick, but I still have my nose bandage and, well, now that I got hit I just need to lie down. Lisa, I need to lie down so I can't make it. I might have taken seven pain pills too. And some wine. Just a little because I had nothing else in the house and the dog told me I should have some wine and so I did and, well, Lisa. Hi. It's Kim. I got hit in the face by my dog and, oh, no, my nose is fine. I knows that everyone knows my nose is fine. But I got hit in the face by my dog and I can't come."
Lisa was a little concerned. Kim was up to her old tricks again, calling up and making strange excuses as to why she couldn't show up to places. Lisa stood on her back patio looking out on the long city before her. Like she was on a mountain top, the green hills unfolded all around, the houses knitted in their nooks like barnacles on the scraped bottom of a ship. She scoops up her dog Giggy and rubs his fur. She thinks about all of them, Kim in her Sad Valley Ranch with empty bottles, both of the liquor variety and the orange plastic kind, scattered around her. She thinks of Adrienne with her mouth twisted into a pout riding in the back of her limosine. She thinks of Faye the party crasher and Kyle the appeaser. Mostly, she thinks of Brandi, who rushed out of there injured once again. She thinks of Brandi, so strong in public, with tears streaming down her face as she winds around the curves toward her house, crying in frustration. She thinks of them all and wonders, in this great expanse of land, if there is anyone else who will ever understand her. Just as she's coming to an answer, Giggy jumps out of her arm and runs across the lawn, letting out a bark at something that is not there.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo credit: Evans Vestal Ward/Bravo]
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There is a strange connection between the Real Slot Machines of Desperation Canyon and Las Vegas. It's like Sin City is their rollicking id, where they often go (and where some make their money) and where all sorts of crazy action happens. It's not hookers and blow and gambling and strippers and magic shows like it is for everyone else, but there is some sort of sorcery at work when the ladies take the trip. They are all transformed into something else — fighting wildebeests scratching their hooves at the desert floor looking to unearth each other's secrets. What is certain is that what happens in Vegas never stays in Vegas.
The ostensible reason for the trip to Vegas was so that Brandi could teach everyone how to be a stripper to empower them. This makes, um, total sense, I guess? I don't know. If you want to learn how to pole dance, just learn how to pole dance. Do we really need the excuse that it is somehow going to solve all the problems in your life? I don't think so. It's probably not. But it is a fun reason to get drunk with all of your girlfriends.
Of course some of the ladies were better at it than others. St. Camille of Grammer, patron saint of cable television dance shows, didn't know how to pole dance, but she knows how to move that lean, lithe body of hers. She hovered around that pole shaking like a wraith or an angel. Definitely an angel. We could see her halo, halo, halo-oooo, as Beyoncé would sing. Lisa Vanderpump said she didn't want to pole dance, but, supporting her friend Brandi, she gamely climbed up there and turned it into a comedy routine. Isn't that just a metaphor for Lisa Vanderpump's life? Isn't that just how she lives from day to day, taking the unpleasants and turning them into little laughs? I guess it's easy when you sleep on a bed of diamonds at night. Yolanda Bananas Foster was deftly adroit, as a woman who mostly cages herself in her home adhering to a staunch workout routine would be. Kyle Richards, as always, made it all about her. She can't dance or work the pole, but she laughed and cackled and yelled and put on a good performance just like her mother taught her in those stuffy audition rooms back when she was still in pig tails. OH! Kyle would have looked so good on that pole in pig tails. The worst, of course, was Fetch (aka Marisa Zanuck), who is never going to happen. She whined and complained about doing it because, yes, that is what makes good TV. God, Fetch is never going to happen. Are we really going to be burdened with her face, which looks like the inside of one of Yolanda's lemons, for the rest of the season?
The one good thing that Fetch did last night was try to clean a red wine stain out of her dioley skirt using white wine, because it's a trick she saw Barbra Streisand do at a party once. Really? She crazy! Does she think that Barbra's talons have touched a single piece of laundry since she moved out of Brooklyn all those years ago? No! The worst part is, they didn't even show us if it worked or not, because if it did I was totally going to steal it and tell people that I saw Barbra Streisand do it at a party once and then I would seem so cool and smart and awesome. Now I'm just going to pick on Fetch for doing it.
I guess we need to mention Adrienne, the Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live under the mountain). She has just been grasping for relevancy the past few weeks while she's licked her wounds, and she didn't want to interact with anyone because they all found out that she (allegedly, possibly, according to the Internet, which is never right about anything except when it is right about some things) gave birth to her children using a surrogate. Either that or she is DB Cooper. Her big secret is one of those two things. Adrienne needed something to do, and decided on designing a handbag line to go along with her ever-so-successful shoe line (which you can purchase at 65% off on the Internet). She had some people at the California Accessory Council and Teen Runaway Shelter mock up a logo for her. All the bags are going to have her name on them, but the logo is going to be all the letters of her name jumbled up like they have floated to the top of a bowl of alphabet soup and just congealed there. When you look at the purse you think it's made by LERENNIOFOAMAD. That's not very good branding.
And if that weren't enough, then she had to take her husband, Paulo the Chimp, to get laser hair removal on his back. That is a really mean thing to do to a chimp. Do you know what a hairless chimp looks like? Macaulay Culkin, that's what. No one wants that. But know who I do want? Jjennifferr Holliddayy, the technician who was brandishing the laser that would singe off all of Paulo's estimable back hair. First of all there are far too many consonants in her name. Wheel of Fortune never wants her to be famous because she would cost them too much money if she was the answer to a puzzle. Also, I believe that she was a Bulgarian pop singer that, after too much inexpensive plastic surgery in Georgia (the country, not the home of Lenethia Leakes) she was deported to America to live a life of shame. At least she got her aesthetician's degree and is now serving the world by ridding chimps of their fur. That is very noble of her.
Now I guess it's time we get to last night's main event. I guess it's appropriate that all the biggest fights in the boxing world happen in Vegas because, well, this was a humdinger. You knew it was going to be bad when Yolanda Bananas Foster, an agorophobic who claims to not like drunk women, was drinking tequila and Fetch, who had already poured red and white wine all over her skirt at Barbra Streisand's insistence, was essentially absent from dinner. Oh, and Brandi had on this hot silver dress that was just short enough to be sexy but not so short that we could see her halo, halo, halo-ooooo and it was just sparkly and totally wonderful. I have a theory that whenever Brandi looks the best is when she gets in the worst fights. Watch for it to happen.
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OK, here is how it went down: everyone was talking about Kim Richards, and how they know that her nose is a new nose from some guy they know she knows knows noses. Then, suddenly, St. Camille turned the discussion to Adrienne which, well, that was a stupid move. As my friends would say, "Why you gotta bring up old shit?" How do we accurately describe this fight? Camille was angry, I don't know about what initially. But she wanted to talk about Adrienne. So she did. Then Brandi, for the millionth time, detailed that she was uncomfortable when Adrienne approached her and said she was going after Lisa at the reunion and was trying to recruit her. Apparently Camille was somehow involved in this too, and Brandi told everyone that Camille knew about the sabotage plot. Camille got all pissed off that Brandi was telling everyone, especially Lisa, that she know about the plot and didn't do anything. She got up from the table and said, "I can handle this, but I won't stand for it!" What a statement. That's amazing. She was basically saying, "I could take you down if you want to, but this is too tawdry for me to sit and listen to."
Instead of talking about what happened and who said what, we should talk about the winners and losers, maybe? Who was right and who was wrong? I think that's easier. OK, so Brandi, I think, came out a loser. Yes, I am #TeamBrandi all the way, and I think that Adrienne is the worst kind of rich person for using her money and lawyers to intimidate Brandi by "suing her."
Oh wait, what's this? I just got hand delivered a message. "Dear Mr. Moylan. It has just come to my attention that you are besmirching the name of my client, HRH Adrienne, the Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live under the mountain), in a public sphere. If you do not cease and desist not only your discussion of her, her family, her friends, her associates, and anyone that might ever come in contact with her in this world or any other in your public position, then there will be a lawsuit. Also, you should probably just shut down this here recap right now, because it will be admissable in a court of law and a judge will hate it. Sincerely, Dirk Jacobini, Attorney at Law."
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Screw that. I'm going to talk as much trash about Adrienne as I want. She's wrong to pursue this nonsense with Brandi when Brandi was speaking the truth. But what makes Brandi a loser is she went on the "Adrienne only owns 2% of the Palms" kick. Yeah. So what, Brandi? Not to be a jerk, but you own 100% of Jack Squat Industries. Adrienne's stake in a billion-dollar business is still $10 million. How much did you get for your book deal?
The other loser was Camille Grammer, who then went after Lisa with her, "You don't own SUR," line which, I think we can all agree is patently false. Lisa only owns 51% of that Sexy Unique Restaurant, but come on, that's basically owning it. Camille was trying to make a point. I get it, but she failed. I think that Kyle and Camille were right to say that Adrienne wasn't there and she couldn't defend herself and that's why they were sticking up for her. That's cool, I get that, but Kyle is not helping her reputation as a shit stirrer. She's always trying to be the peace keeper and make sure everyone is getting along, but as soon as the gloves come on, she's there in the corner fighting an argument.
I would like to say Yolanda Bananas Foster was a loser, for shushing our St. Camille (which is something you should never do), but she had a point. This was the third time this fight had gone round and round, and the third dinner that it had ruined, and we're all just getting a little bit sick of it, aren't we? Don't we want there to be some kind of resolution or movement? Oh, and Yolanda got to go home early in a private jet while everyone else had to sit around and stew in their own juices (Housewife juices smell like white wine and broken endorsement deals). See ya later, suckers! However, I think that Yolanda loses existentially, because she has no idea what show she is on. This is a battle royale where women get drink and yell at dinner. That's sort of like planning a trip to the beach and then complaining that there is too much sand. If you don't want the sand, get off the damn beach.
Lisa Vanderpump was also a winner here, because this whole fight started about her but somehow migrated around the table and encompassed everyone but her. The one kernel of truth that Camille placed out there — the thing that started this whole row — was that Adrienne started going after Lisa because of two things: 1. Adrienne was mad that Lisa's daughter Pandora had her Vegas bachelorette party at a hotel other than the Palms and 2. Adrienne was mad that Lisa called her shoe "The Maloof Hoof." OK, those are the two dumbest reasons ever. The first one, I have said before, will go down in history as the dumbest gripe on any Housewives show ever. Who cares where Pandora went? It was her decision, not her mother's. People don't blame my mother for my public urination arrest, so no one should blame Pandy's mom for her bachelorette party.
The second reason was the real problem. No one in this universe (and by that I mean the Real Housewives universe, which is strange and separate from our own) has a sense of humor. Well, most of them don't. Brandi does and Lisa sure does and when they say something like that, it is a joke. Adrienne can not take a joke. That is what this whole season is essentially about: one grown woman who can't take another woman's clever pun about her shoe. The reason they aren't selling has nothing to do with what Lisa called them on the show. They're not selling because they're bland and ugly and overpriced (even 65% off is too much). In fact, calling them the "Maloof Hoof" was the best bit of branding anyone did for Adrienne. She should pay Lisa for that.
The fight petered out and just ended for some reason. I'm not sure why. Maybe Yolanda squashed it with her lemon-scented lips. The real take-away from the end of the episode was that we saw Kyle and Lisa face off, telling their sides of the story. This was the real fight. This was the real angle that the show is taking, these two Titans trying to steal the world from each other. That is what this season wants us to take away from it. If their relationship ruptures, well, it will be an awful horrible split. A rift that will engulf Jill and Bethenny, Kim and Nene, Tamra and Vicki and all the rest. Like an explosion.
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Finally, we have to talk about Kim. Oh yes, my favorite Kim Richards got a new nose installed last night. I'm not going to get into all that drama with her addiction and taking pain pills, because that was just a red herring. She told us she was going to try to not take any pain pills (well, at least anything stronger than an Advil), and I have to believe her. I'm not a family member who has been screwed over repeatedly by her lying and drug abuse so it's easy for me, but, there it is. I'm trusting her. As for her call with Kyle, it was extremely fraught.
Kim called Kyle while she was in Las Vegas and said, "I'm thinking of getting a nose job today." What? OK, Kim. You do not need your sister's permission, but you also didn't need to call her up on the day you were doing it and ask for it. Here's the thing. Kim thought that she needed Kyle's permission — that's why she called and asked, and didn't just call and tell her. I think Kyle has made Kim think that Kim needs her permission for everything, and now Kim is getting over that. When Kyle talks about how this is the "state of our relationship" it means that Kim is growing up, growing away from Kyle, and becoming her own, unique, strong person.
But Kim needed a nose job like Yolanda needs another lemon tree. She even said it herself, that God made her and she's perfect but he wouldn't mind her changing her nose so much because when he made her it was the end of the day and he wasn't really paying attention and used some spare parts anyway. But Kim needed something. She knew she needed someone who knows why she knows someone that knows noses. She knew that she needed to make herself better inside and out. She needed some physical manifestation of her inner transformation. Get on it, girl. And when the doctor was digging around in there he found that her septum was deviated, which probably means that she could now get her health insurance to cover the cost. You go Kim.
But the sad part came when she was lying in the hospital, coming out of the aenesthesia. The show's producers love these moments, because the women always say ridiculous things and can't help but tell the truth. Kim said some remarkable things. She lied there in her hospital gown and mumbled that she wished her sister were there. She mumbled that she wished that one of her four children were there. But there was no one. She was all alone, fighting through the fog on her own. So many people have come and gone, the husbands, the lovers, the family, that rock she painted a face on and named Ken and called her boyfriend. They've all gone, sniffed out like the moon falling behind a dark, dank cloud.
Suddenly, in that way only medication can do, she isn't in the world anymore. She is both awake and asleep and she's in her trailer on the Disney lot and it's the last day of a movie shoot. She's young again, and beautiful. Her hair is teased high and she's wearing bright makeup because it was the '80s and that was the style. She looks down at her vanity and sees the crimping iron and then she looks up at the mirror and sees her old nose and all the people standing behind her. The crew mostly, but fans all. And staff. They're clamoring for her. "Sign this for me please, Kim?" "It was so great working with you!" "What is our next project going to be?" "You better hurry up or you're going to be late for your first date with this hot new actor, I think his name is Jimmy Depp." "Oh, Kim this has been the best two months of my life."
She thanks them all and signs them and waives. She waves and makes her way through the scrum and out the door into the sun which is so bright it's like an operating lamp blaring down at her eyes. Even when she closes them, she can still see the indistinct brightness shining down into her face, over the clean, expansive lines of the sound studio. "Kim! Kim! Kim!" all the onlookers shout at her. "Kim! Kim!" She turns around and waves at them, but the sun is still in her eyes. She can't see them anymore, but she can hear the voices, hear them getting fainter and fainter as they recede. "Bye everyone," she says. "Don't forget. I love you. Will you love me too? Love me forever and I'll remember. Don't forget. Don't forget. Don't forget," she says to all the disembodied dream people. "Don't forget me," she says out loud.
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SPOILERS AHEAD, MY GOD, SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE LATEST EPISODE OF NEW GIRL, TURN AWAY NOW.
Are you breathing yet? Has your heart beat settled back to a normal rate? Is your jaw off the floor? Have you been able to form a coherent sentence or have you just been stringing together a series of giddy shrieks and "Oh my God"s? No? Don't worry, me neither.
It was everything you were hoping for and more, wasn't it? It was thrilling and romantic and damn sexy. It was unexpected (series typically tend to save something this big for a cliffhanger finale) and was the big payoff fans had been waiting a season-and-a-half for. And before reality sets in, before the harsh light of day takes over and we're forced to ask ourselves if this is happening too soon, no matter how good it feels and that it could change the dynamic of everything for the worst if mishandled, let's just bask in this glow right now: Brooklyn Decker guest starred on New Girl.
I kid, I kid. Yes, the model/actress did appear on this week's game-changing episode "Cooler," but that's not why every New Girl fan on the planet is collectively losing their s**t right now. Nope. It's because — capitals entirely necessary and earned here — NICK AND JESS KISSED. I REPEAT: NICK AND JESS FINALLY KISSED. By locking lips, the pair not only shook the foundation of the show to its core, but they joined the pantheon of great first TV kisses. Ross and Rachel on Friends, Jim and Pam on The Office, Sam and Diane on Cheers. And just like those will-they-won't-they-but-you-knew-they-always-would couples, there was a hell of a lot of swooning going on from fans watching at home.
So how did we get here? How, after a year-and-a-half of longing glances, fights masquerading as foreplay, unrelenting flirting, the unspoken awareness of the fact that they are meant for each other, actually come to fruition? Well, let's start at the very beginning. (I'm told it's a very good place to start.)
After accidentally receiving a delivery of a woman's trench coat, which just so happened to "fit like a damn glove" Nick and the boys decide to have a night on the town. He's feeling confident in his new coat — confident enough to score some new chicks in this post-Angie era. Winston tags along, needing to get the "yips" out of his system (yeah, this show borrows from How I Met Your Mother here and there, but hell, all sitcoms borrow from each other at one point or another), and Schmidt craves the companionship of a lady as solo sessions had left him as limp as a "taffy on a hot summer's day."
And of course, Jess wants in on the fun. I mean, who wouldn't? Those guys are the best. But Nick vetoes the suggestion immediately, calling Jess the William H. Macy to his Alec Baldwin. She was his "cooler" (just like in that movie no one saw). Any time Nick is on a roll with a girl, Jess swoops in and sends her running. Now, one could argue that this is just Jess' very nature. She has very little filter, let alone a basic understanding of social norms. But I'd argue that Jess subconsciously sends these ladies away for fear that any of them could potentially take Nick away from her for good. It's the same reason why Nick was declared Jess' "fluffer," what appeared to be self-sabotage was really just a desperate attempt to stay in her good graces.
With Jess left behind, the guys all wind up at Nick's bar (turns out, the sporting of a lady's raincoat is an efficient way to get a fella "kicked out of the discotheque"), where the trio of horny doofuses lay their eyes on a beautiful woman named Holly (played by Decker, who is as funny and charming in her role as she is gorgeous, because the world is a cruel and unfair place).
Poor Winston strikes out with her immediately, but that's okay because he found another complete knock-out (because that's how it works in real life) named Daisy (The Social Network's Brenda Song). She plays coy at first, but eventually takes to bolstering young Winston's skills in the art of seduction. Schmidt and Nick, on the other hand, are deeply immersed in a mating battle that would rival anything you've seen on the Discovery Channel. That is, if wild animals got into slap fights in public and told each other they were "the dumbest."
As it turns out, Holly had a thing for sad sack guys with sob stories. As such, the advantage (maybe for the first time ever) goes to Nick. But in true cooler fashion, just as Nick is making some serious moves, Jess phones him in the midst of a freak-out. She is home alone at the loft, since her boyfriend Sam is at work and Cece is on yet another date (technically, Jess isn't totally alone, as she does fashion a Nick-a-like with a melon and some of his clothes... it's slightly less creepy than it sounds), and heard scary noises that she is convinced are gang-related. "I've always worried about my blue curtains," she cries, the line delivered perfectly by Zooey Deschanel.
Rather than leave Holly at the bar at the mercy of Schmidt, Nick brings the entire gang back to the loft to investigate the strange noise. Nick assures Jess that the sound was probably nothing more than the old pipes in the building ("You never listen during pipe talk"). To make it up to Nick, Jess promises to reverse roles and to become his fluffer. Her plan to help get him laid with Holly? Forcing everyone to participate in the best fictitious drinking game ever: True Americans. Only this time with Clinton rules! Such include "picking your intern" and stripping down, naturally. (Best moment of the game: when Schmidt shouts, "Abu Nazir!")
The group of hyper-attractive friends and new acquaintances decide to raise the stakes of the game with a challenge, with the losers enduring the consequence of a grown-up equivalent of Seven Minutes in Heaven, mandated to kiss before returning to the game. That's right! The secret word: kiss! In the closet, Nick and Jess play a little game of their own of sexy, emotional chicken. They go back and forth between deciding to go through with it and recoiling, chalking it up to goofy faces being made and whether or not they enjoy "getting tongued." But things eventually take a turn from awkward maneuvers and relatively harmless flirting (Jess tells Nick he has potential to be "smokin' hot") to full-fledged oh-my-god-they-are-actually-going-to-do-this after Nick, eyes locked with Jess' and his hand on her, blurts out that he doesn't want to just kiss Jess as part of a game. "No, not like this," he says. Wow. Didn't know Nick had it in him.
Rather than face the big moment as it unfolds before him, Nick does what Nick does in this sort of situation: he climbs out of the window, much to the horror of those on the other side of the iron curtain (including Jess' boyfriend Sam who just so happens to show up, and Cece's poor sap of a date who is doomed from the start). Things settle down in time, and attention turns to the others. Despite having a 401k and a six pack, the neurotic loft resident proves to be depressing enough for Holly to sleep with. Winston stumbles upon a new lady (and potentially, a worthwhile story line). Meanwhile, Jess and Nick go their separate ways. That is, until they wind up in the hallway together later that night. Nick, a man who takes such few gambles, never chasing what he wants or might deserve, grabs Jess, kisses her passionately, and tells her that is how he wanted to kiss her. Wow. Glad Nick had it in him. Serious kudos to the series MVP Jake Johnson — once again —who has not only been the most consistently funny and believable person on the show, but has now solidified himself as a grade-A, crush-worthy dreamboat.
I know not everyone will be thrilled with this kiss. They'll fear it too much too soon, and that the writers still won't put them together just yet. Hey, it panned out for Jim and Pam (who had a similarly-timed kiss) in the end, didn't it? But no matter how you feel about the kiss, it was still an excellent episode of New Girl, maybe the best of the season so far. It marked the return of True Americans, Nick wearing a lady's coat for almost the entirety of the episode (up to and including when its rightful owner showed up at their door to get it), Jess in a bra, Schmidt having a fainting spell, and Winston getting his mojo back or maybe for the very first time. ("What yo thang do!")
I, like most fans, hope that Jess doesn't break Nick's heart, like she did his melon head, and that she dumps Sam (who is a bit of a goon anyway). The writers of New Girlhave a difficult task ahead of them to keep fans satisfied, while still making a quality show, but I have faith they can do it and that Deschanel and Johnson will continue to do wonders with the material. Now, let's all rewind our DVRs and go watch that kiss again. [Photo credit: Fox] More:
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To effectively stake their claim in the wild, animals spray their urine on trees, plants, and patches of ground surrounding their desired territory. The acting community uses a similar tactic to nab roles, swapping out pee for a well-timed red carpet quote.
In the jungle of Hollywood, landing a major part is a survival of the fittest competition. Even the men and women at the top of the food chain have to leave their mark.
Bradley Cooper is the latest actor to enter into the tricky world of public role campaigning, connecting himself to an upcoming Lance Armstrong biopic produced by J.J. Abrams. Unlike a cougar tinkling on a nearby bush, slipping casting suggestions into the swirling rumor pool is a subtle art.
Cooper originally told the BBC that he would love to play the controversial biker, only later to state that he wasn't even aware that Abrams was producing a film based on the athlete's life. Unfortunately, the matter complicated itself for Cooper when Abrams revealed at the Producer's Guild Awards that Cooper had sent him a personal e-mail regarding the movie. Cooper may insist he's not chasing the part, but you can bet the other A-List badgers smell his scent all over it.
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When it comes to publicly courting roles, it's all about recognizability. Actors and actresses aren't making a big to-do about nabbing the the lead in a drug addiction indie film or the most recent adaptation of that 18th century novel everyone read in high school. No, they want the part audiences have already heard of; in Hollywood, that's either the biopic or the superhero blockbuster.
Thanks to the wonders of Internet, speculative campaigning can spread like wildfire. Rihanna says she wants to play Whitney Houston in a non-existent biopic instantly begins fueling the idea of Rihanna playing Whitney Houston in a biopic.
Last year, Drake told the NY Post that he'd love to play Obama. He was even preparing for the role, one that no one is asking him to take on. "I watch all the addresses. Any time I see him on TV, I don't change the channel. I definitely pay attention and listen to the inflections of his voice. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m pretty good at impressions."
The self-campaigning doesn't end at mere suggestion. To put himself in front of F. Gary Gray's eyes in hopes of landing the lead in the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, up-and-comer Ephraim Benton filmed a 13-minute video where he impersonates the group's frontman Eazy E. Will it work? Or rather, is it good enough to help his chances?
Attempting to spin exposure into a real life audition rarely works. Most memorably was Sean Young's failed attempts at courting Tim Burton to cast her as Catwoman in Batman Returns.
After being cast as Vicki Vale in the original Batman and losing the role after a horse riding incident, it was Young's prerogative to rejoin the franchise. She even dressed up in costume and making the media rounds to catch Burton's attention. Here she is discussing the role on Joan Rivers' talk show in 1992:
With comic book movies dominating the multiplexes, it's no surprise that famous faces continue to publicly declare themselves fans of caped crusaders in hopes of sparking interest in their casting.
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In 2011, at the height of Marvel fever (and a year out from Avengers), Patrick Dempsey told the LA Times he was anxious to take the lead in a proposed Doctor Strange film. “I’ve been lobbying for that. There’s a whole bunch of people [among the Grey's crew] who are into comics and Marvel, too, on the set and they’re like, ‘Doctor Strange, that’s the one you should do.’ It would be fantastic."
The movie has been teased as a potential post-Avengers 2 project — will Dempsey still be marketable by 2016? Joining the actor in his Marvel praise is Friday Night Lights and Hart of Dixie star Scott Porter, who he recently threw himself into the ring for the role of Nova in Guardians of the Galaxy. He may not get his wish, as the character was not even included in Marvel's announced line-up. That's serious display of ambition on Porter's part.
Some actors go the extra step. Isaiah Mustafa, aka the "Old Spice commercial guy," was so driven to bring Marvel's genetically enhanced hero Luke Cage to screen, he went ahead and used his deodorant money to fund a fake trailer for the movie. Now, casting agents know what Mustafa looks like with glowing eyes:
Hung star Thomas Jane was vocal about his diehard passion for comic books and The Punisher character before taking on the role in the 2004 adaptation. So it's not surprising that when he wasn't asked to return for the sequel, 2008's Punisher: War Zone, he left with a chip on his shoulder.
Hoping to prove himself Hollywood's one and only Punisher, Jane reprised the character in a self-produced short film that he premiered under the radar at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. The film boldly tells Hollywood to screw themselves... but also to consider rehiring him for a new Punisher feature.
This isn't to say that publicly campaigning for a coveted role never works. Monday may have been an example of the strategic move blowing up in one actor's face, but it also proved that it can work in the right hands. In 2011, Paul Giamatti told Conan O'Brien that he was dying to star in a Spider-Man movie as the over-the-top villain The Rhino.
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Late Monday afternoon, we confirmed that Giamatti's wish has indeed been granted: the actor will suit up for Amazing Spider-Man 2. Giamatti is one Hollywood wolf who knows how to mark his territory... proving once and for all that rhino urine leaves the harshest stench.
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches
[Photo Credit: WENN]
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